Sears, the storied national retailer that filed for bankruptcy Monday, will close its St. Paul location on Rice Street and a Lands’ End store by Ridgedale Center in Minnetonka.
The Sears location at the Mall of America in Bloomington was not on the list.
Sears, started by Richard W. Sears in Minneapolis 1886 and shortly thereafter moved to Chicago, grew through the company’s mail-order catalog to become a ubiquitous American retailer — with thousands of stores, numerous household brand names such as Kenmore and Craftsman, and its name on the tallest building in America.
When the $5 million store on Rice Street opened in August 1963, it was a model of modern retail architecture. Newspaper advertisements boasted of the store’s one-stop shopping convenience, its 61 departments stocked with everything from clothing to couches to car parts. The sales floor covered 100,000 square feet.
But there was more to the store than merchandise. A first-floor coffee shop offered seating for 150 people, and an escalator conveyed customers upstairs where they could find a salon and sewing school.
Located just a couple of blocks north of the proposed Interstate 94 corridor, Sears selected the site of the store with the automobile in mind. When the freeway opened five years later, executives calculated that shoppers would come from miles around. A 10-acre parking lot could accommodate 1,400 vehicles.The store was greeted as an economic boon by city officials, hiring 500 new employees in the months leading up to its grand opening.
Together with companies like Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney, Sears helped foster American consumer culture.
But the company struggled to compete with internet retailers and filed bankruptcy on Monday to get out from under massive debt.
CUSTOMERS CALL CLOSING ‘A SHAME’
There were dozens of shoppers at the store Monday night, many of them waiting in line at the Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services’ busy licensing bureau on the second floor.
With Sears’ recent troubles, loyal customers’ options are limited.
“We just went to the one In Brooklyn Park which is closed. The one in Maplewood is shut down also,” said Ron Trost, 59, of Fridley. “We come here all the time. … It’s just a shame.”
Erick Salinas’ heart went out to the employees at the store.
“There’s a lot of people who depend on Sears for their jobs. … I don’t know when they’re planning to close, but at this time of the year? It would be hard to lose their job at Christmas, New
Years,” the 39-year-old shopper from Richfield said.
REVITALIZATION PLAN UNREALIZED
In St. Paul, city officials once hoped the Rice Street location would restructure its outdated strip mall-like layout and sizable parking lot to invite residences, new office space, structured parking and a modernized retail space.
In 2012, parent company Sears Holding Corp. identified 10 locations across the country as ripe for redevelopment, and the Rice Street store was on the list.
The vision included more than 100 new apartments, 18 townhomes, an office building, a parking ramp and more than 100,000 square feet of new retail buildings, in addition to update to the Sears store itself. All of it to be within walking distance of Metro Transit’s Green Line corridor and the Capitol/Rice Street light-rail station, as well as the Minnesota State Capitol complex.
The light rail debuted in the summer of 2014, with no movement on the proposal and no new information coming from Sears. The company later transferred ownership of the property to Seritage Growth Properties, a publicly-traded real estate investment trust, which leases the store back to Sears.
Seritage recently listed the complex — including a Sears auto center and surrounding parking — on its website for lease.
CLOSINGS BY END OF YEAR
According to USA Today, Sears Holdings will close the 142 stores by about the end of the year. The round of cuts are on top of a recently announced round of 46 store closures, as part of the bankruptcy.
The company has 687 stores and about 68,000 employees.
In a letter to customers Monday, Sears will continue to honor customer programs like product warranties and the Shop Your Way loyalty program as normal. There will also be no impact on the Sears Credit Card and Sears Mastercard, the letter said.
Nick Woltman contributed to this report.
